Meltdown is a compelling miniseries. I put it on to have in the background and ended up sitting down to watch the whole thing. It is the story of the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor in 1979, the cleanup, and the aftermath.

This show made me think of a book I read last year called Midnight in Chernobyl (I haven't seen the show yet). There was a lot of government coverup and mismanagement in both cases. The people of Middletown and the surrounding areas were kept in the dark, and when they were given information it was confusing and contradictory. They waited a long time to evacuate the civilians, and even now deny that their extremely high rate of cancer could possibly be connected to the meltdown.

Rick Parks was the most interesting person interviewed for this series. He was hired to be part of the cleanup crew after the partial meltdown but became a whistleblower after pointing out a major safety risk that was ignored. He faced a lot of trouble for his actions: his apartment was broken into, his kids were threatened, and his girlfriend broke up with him because she was afraid for her and her daughter's safety. But Parks continued to go public anyway, because he knew that there was potential for a full meltdown that could have irradiated clear to Philadelphia, New York City, and Washington DC. I hope I am never in a situation where the only way to ensure safety is to become a whistleblower and put myself at risk, but if I am, I hope I have the same courage that he did.

One interesting thing about Rick Parks is that he has always been, and continues to be, very pro-nuclear power. But, he said something at the end of the documentary series that I think sums up everything: nuclear power won't be safe unless it is no longer driven by profit. This is an idea that America needs to adopt immediately, and about more than just nuclear power!